Personal musings on Israel, Jewish matters, history and how they all affect each other

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Laws and Politics

Isabel Kershner of the NYT has an article about the Bedouin village of Al Araqib (that's the spelling she uses). Interesting how she notices the polygamy of the villagers, without ever noticing it. Might the willingness to flout the law on the matter of marriage (polygamy is illegal, with no ifs or buts) have anything to do with a story about a clash of tradition and law on property issues? I'd think so, but the NYT apparently doesn't.

Taking a broader perspective, the way I see it there are three conceptual models for understanding stories with tensions between laws and rights. One is to adhere to the supremacy of all laws, always, whether it be about Bedouins vs property laws, migrants vs immigration and citizenship laws, settlers vs international laws of occupation, and so on. Another is to recognize that laws are simply one important tool in the toolbox society draws upon to deal with its areas of conflict, while accepting that the political process at times will prefer other tools, or a combination of them. A third position is to distinguish between the laws of a sovereign democratic state, and international laws with no ultimate sovereign.

So far as I can see, no matter which model one prefers, the public discourse about these matters is not consistent. It's inconsistent to talk about illegal Israeli settlements while refraining from the same terminology on the story of this Bedouin village. You can't maintain that a (murky) principle of international law supersedes common sense regarding Israel's relationship to Gaza, but also insist that Israel's relationship to illegal migrants be informed primarily by morality rather than laws.

I am firmly in the camp that honors law as an important measure society uses to administer its matters, along with others measures. (And I'm not impressed with international law in its current public expression). So far as I can see, many of our detractors are simply hypocrites on these issues, and use whichever line of argumentation serves best to bash Israel on whatever particular point.

9 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Yaacovwithout reading Kershner's piece (presently I suffer from a bout of disgust) I conclude from your piece that she, like so many many others, succumbs to this in my mind especially vile variation of racism:

it is their culture, if you take it away from them, their "identity" will be damaged and a damaged identity will damage the dignity and a diminished dignity may cause (and excuse) just about everything. (after the lack of food claim for Gaza has been debunked damaged dignity seems to evolve as the new mantra)

Assuming there is an afterlife what do you think ol' Sigmund thinks about all this i.e. how his genuine wish to help an unhappy few has led to diagnosis which are fit to make everybody in urgend need of psycho-treatment ... who themselves suffer from exactly what? they can't be the only non-sufferers out there? could it be lack of patients that ails them?

It is racism, period. You are being too generous, Silke, by attributing it a rationale. Franz Fanon, the theoricist of the Algerian Revolution and an apoligist for its most barbaric aspects, was already disturbed by the pro-revolutionary French Left's double standards and he called it racism.So it's not that the Economist is antisemitic for attributing ALL responsibility in the conflict to Israel, rather it is being racist for taking it for granted that by nature, Palestinians Arabs are irresponsible, and therefore should not be faulted.

It is racism that motivates the French media, for example, to refer to Muslim rioters of any age as "the youth" or the "youth of the suburbs". At the same time they are saying that Muslims are not responsible for their actions or incapable to behave in a civilized manner.

Of course, there are Muslims and Arabs who play on that when it suits them: "Arabs don't have the technology and therefore are incapable to ... (name the crime).

SylviaI didn't mean to be anything but scathing on "them" -I tried to make fun of psychos who supply some of the arguments for that heinous attitude-sorry if it came across the wrong way - but being a woman of a certain age (i.e. when it was still generally accepted that it would be damaging a pretty head if it liked for example math) and having never had much of a formal education I feel quite a bit of compassion for and solidarity with the "exotics" whenever they are padded condescendingly on the back that way by their wannabe "uplifters".-btw have you noticed that Reuel Marc Gerecht refers to Abdelwahab Meddeb in his last TNR piece. Gerecht seems to be appropriately careful in his wording and I hope Meddeb is not going to become the next poster-child moderate muslim. I have listened to his program for quite a while and came away not trusting his whatever when it came to Israel.

OT but too interesting to missLee Smith on that Saudi-Arabia probably has the bomb in a way Silkehttp://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/43491/prolific/?utm_source=Tablet+Magazine+List&utm_campaign=874d35ce14-8_25_2010&utm_medium=email

Israel is enforcing its land laws in the Negev, which is nearly all state lands. No one has the right to illegally squat on it. And its this point that is somehow always left out when it comes to internationally commentary about why the Bedouins were uprooted from Al Araqib. There are hundreds of such illegal Bedouin settlements in the Negev and it was long overdue for Israel to enforce laws against illegal construction upon Arabs just as it done upon the Jews.

I have long suspected that the so-called "Gaza blockade" is a sham concocted for Israeli internal consumption - and for gain. These pictures showing the lavish construction boom in Gaza prove it. I have no doubt that the construction materials for this came from Israel.Scroll down to the large pictures on this page. The site is in Hebrew, but all the pictures are of Gaza.http://www.israelnow.co.il/a21246-החיים-בעזה

The pictures of Gaza are virtually indistinguishable from pictures of Ashdod. I can't believe the depths of denial to which people will go to avoid recognizing the reality in Gaza, which is less "humanitarian crisis" and more "prime housing market."